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A pilgrimage of hope: Advocating to end detention centers

A pilgrimage of hope: Advocating to end detention centers
Pilgrimage of hope

For the past three years, the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, in partnership with the Dignity Not Detention Coalition, has been organizing the pilgrimage "A Journey Toward Freedom." This initiative encompasses visits to the six remaining detention centers in California and aims to raise awareness about the critical need for their closure. 

This year, the organizations started their pilgrimage on September 25th in McFarland at the Golden State Modified Community Correctional Facility, to later visit the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, and the Imperial Detention Center in Calexico, concluding on September 29th in Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. 

According to the non-profit Freedom for Immigrants, California is one of the “top five states with the largest number of people in U.S. immigration detention per day,” with around 1,793 detainees. Furthermore, the organization references data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), indicating that over 90 percent of these individuals are housed in privately operated immigration detention centers.

The pilgrimage gathered more than 50 participants, including directly impacted persons who traveled together and shared their testimonies. At each stop, attendees engaged with local leaders and non-profit organizations to deliver a vital message to incarcerated individuals and their families: they are not alone. Furthermore, the pilgrimage honored the memory of those who had lost their lives while in custody, such as Fernando Dominguez Valdivia, Raul Ernesto Morales Ramos, Jose Manuel Azurdia Hernandez, Osmar Epifanio Gonzalez Gadba, Sergio Alonso Lopez, Vicente Caceres Maradiaga, Juan Pablo Flores Segura, Jose Ibarra Buccio and Martin Vargas. 

“We are not going to stop until we can tear down those walls of pain and turn them into something special for our children, into an education center, a recreation center, or a community center. That's why we are here, to tear down those walls of pain and embrace our families... let's keep going, we are going to make it,” said one of the speakers in  Spanish whose husband was detained in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center after a 16 years deportation order.  

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Religious leaders from different faiths joined the pilgrimage to convey their solidarity. “One of the main things that I see is that somehow we have created these ‘others.’ Immigrant[s] only affects some other groups,” said Genaro Waheed. “What I realize, and why I come here, is […]  immigration affects everybody.” Waheed is part of the Riverside Interfaith Council (RIC) and a member of the Muslim community who joined the pilgrimage at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco.   

For him, the perception of "others" distances the larger community from the conversation about immigration, which prevents people from recognizing their shared stakes in this vital matter. He explained that societal divisions reinforce a false narrative that the impacts of incarceration are isolated to a particular group of people. He emphasized that when people are incarcerated, often in pursuit of freedom or survival, it is not just their lives that are affected but society as a whole. 

The business of detention centers 

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The National Immigrant Justice Center asserts that ICE’s detention system promotes incarceration primarily for profit. In fiscal year 2021, Congress allocated nearly $3 billion to ICE to operate more than 200 immigrant detention centers. For the 2024 fiscal year, the budget went up to$3.43 billion.

Private prison corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic have benefited from that allocation. The ACLU estimated the GEO Group made $1.05 billion in revenue from ICE contracts in 2022, almost half (43.9%) of its total 2.4 billion revenue.  

The report states CoreCivic made $552.2 million from ICE detention contracts in 2022, representing 30% of its total revenue.

The facilities’ conditions

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According to the American Immigration Council, in 2013, data resulting from a class action lawsuit on behalf of noncitizens detained in California indicated that individuals seeking relief from removal were held in ICE detention centers in the state for an average duration of 421 days. 

A 2020 NPR report about the Adelanto ICE Processing Center -the largest center in California, highlighted that “the facility failed to meet ICE's own standards for using solitary confinement. One detainee, for instance, cumulatively spent nearly 2 1/2 years in solitary.” The report also indicated that “staff used pepper spray on immigrants held in detention but did not follow best practices when it came time to remove the spray from detainees.” Additionally, it indicated that “it was ‘more likely than not’ that problems with medical care ‘contributed to medical injuries, including bone deformities and detainee deaths.’" 

“People don't need to be living in incarceration while they're waiting [for] their paperwork or they're processing,” said Cecilia Vasquez, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Riverside, who joined the pilgrimage at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. 

Adelanto ICE Processing Center

Vasquez emphasized that a commitment to caring for humanity lies at the heart of these efforts, framing abolition not as an abstract concept but as a living, practical approach grounded in community action and solidarity.

She added detention can range from six months to five years. “That's scary to live day to day, not knowing how long you're gonna be there because you're just waiting for paperwork.” 

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